As part of my ongoing crazy travel schedule, I’m going to be in Denmark in two weeks, and then off to Minneapolis for the brilliant Eyeo Festival. After that, I’ll be in New York for the Reasons Festival so I decided to spend the rest of June in the city.

And I’ve also decided to run a CreativeJS workshop while I’m there! It’ll be the full 3 day course from the 20-22nd June, and prices start at $1399 (or $899 if you’re freelance). Tickets on sale from next Tuesday (22nd) from 10am – they tend to sell out very quickly, so if you’d like early access, leave your email address below.

Full details on my training page.

Related posts:

1. September CreativeJS workshop in Brighton
2. Arduino workshop at FlashCoders New York on Wednesday
3. More training courses in Cologne, Minneapolis, New York and San Francisco

I had a great time at the State of the Browser conference in London on Saturday – it was nice to see representatives from FireFox, Chrome, Opera and MSIE all getting along so well.

Getting along well is all nice and stuff, but isn’t it more fun if there’s a bit of tension? So to stir things up a bit I live coded a fun but completely irrelevant test that would pit the browsers against each other and stretch them to their limits.

It’s based on this micro tutorial on CreativeJS.com and works on a pixel level, directly manipulating the 2D canvas data to render pixel particles.

Although it was a completely unfair test (I even cheekily ran IE in a VM as punishment for not making a cross platform browser ) it’s still kinda astonishing that JS can render millions of particles without catching breath.

image stolen from the Mozilla blog

When asked, most people assumed that Chrome would be fastest, but it was actually FireFox that won the challenge with around 3.6 million particles. This is most likely because they’ve implemented typed arrays in their canvas image data object (coming in the next Chrome, apparently).

Run the test for yourself here and play with the code on JSBin. Keep the mouse pressed until the red bar hits the right hand side (Which means we’re running at 5 fps).

For sensible write ups of the event that mostly ignore irrelevant particle tests :

Mozilla
UBelly
Remy Sharp
Andi Smith

Related posts:

1. I am a Mozilla Person of HTML5!

After opening the excellent DiBi in Newcastle, I’ve got a fairly crazy couple of months to get through – I’m really going to have to learn to say no…

First there’s BTPlay in Cologne, Germany, there may be a few tickets left so get in touch if you want to come.

State of the Browser – April 28

Moving on to next Saturday, where I’m doing a lightning session at the London Web Standards’ State of the Browser event. I’ll be live coding some 3D particles and then seeing which browser can handle the most. It’s a completely arbitrary competition of course, and it’ll probably be totally unfair. Fun!

SourceDevCon – May 3-4

After a successful launch in Croatia, Grgur and his team are bringing this web dev conference to London. He’s even managed to get Douglas Crockford to come along, so that’s great, you know, if you wanted to ask about semi-colons.

Mobilism – May 10-11

This is PPK‘s mobile web development conference and after a sell out last year, they’ve moved to the larger (and gorgeous) Tuschinski theatre in Amsterdam. The speaker list is excellent. But for my presentation I’m going to be trying some brand new things with PixelPhones.

Reasons to be Appy – May 29

The first of John Davey’s rebranded “Reasons” conferences, this is a fun short and affordable one day event in London with excellent speakers such as Brendan Dawes and Keiichi Matsuda.

Following that, there’s the Multimedia Teachers’ conference in Denmark, the Eyeo Festival and Reasons in New York. More information coming soon.

Related posts:

1. Speaking at FlashCamp, London
2. CreativeJS video from London Web Standards
3. Papervision3D session with Carlos in London

Haven’t most April fools jokes got a bit silly lately? They’re more just funny than actually fooling you. This year, I thought I’d raise the bar with a completely fake MMO Asteroids, but I could never imagine so many of you would be taken in. I’m so sorry.

It all started around a year ago. There’s an example on my CreativeJS course where circular particles exert a little force on each other and they wander around rather pleasingly. An attendee decided to make them triangular and point in the direction that they’re moving in and voila! A system of circling, avoiding, flocking AI bots emerged.

All I had to add was some basic collision detection, bullets, and despite the simple behaviour rules, it was very pleasing, and very convincing. So I thought I’d make it more obvious – I added a “kill mode” that kicks in after a random time – surely you’ll realise it’s fake when every single other ship turns on you and mows you down? But instead, many assumed it was anti-spam or AI bots gone wrong.

Many amazing comments followed on twitter, most really impressed, a couple a little dismayed that everyone was picking on them. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ekene Ijeoma who simply tweeted ‘help’ as all the other ships turned on him. (It’s his screen shot in the header).

But some suspicion emerged. Kudos to Jon Schall who was the first commenter on the post. But even Jon didn’t quite realise it was an April fools for a while (he blames lack of coffee).

There was a steady stream of traffic during the day, but things really took off in the evening when it made it to the top of Hacker News. The comment thread started in awe, then confusion, and then anger as people realised it was fake.

I must admit that it made me giggle reading the thread as various theories emerge. The “kill mode” starts randomly, and yet many thought that their actions were somehow triggering it. Someone suggested clearing their cookies to reset the weird occurrences. But of course, one or two figured out that you could pull your network cable out and the game still worked fine.

The sad truth is that if it was real, it probably wouldn’t be as dynamic or as much fun, and there’d certainly be fewer players. Rob Hawkes has made in-roads with Rawkets, but making it reliable, scaleable, and most of all fun is a huge challenge. Maybe I’ll try it for real some day and find out (not that I’ll ever be able to convince you that it’s real from now on…)

It’s been great fun, a fascinating experiment, and I hope you had fun. And if you were taken in, I really hope you see the funny side. The only question is, how will I get you next year..?

Related posts:

1. Node.js experiment: MMO Asteroids

I’ve had my eye on Node.js for a while now so I jumped at the chance to attend Remy’s excellent workshop a couple of weeks ago. Most people associate node with websockets but actually node is a hugely versatile platform capable of running powerful servers and web-apps.

That said, anyone who knows me will know that I’m fascinated by real-time multi-player games (remember my Lunar Lander trails?) so the first thing I’ve done is put together a little demo to test out the MMO capabilities of the node.js socket server. It’s a Asteroids-esque space shooter, with one rocket per person, use the cursor keys to fly, and space to fire.

Synchronisation

It’s a very early prototype, I’m still working on the system to keep all the ships in sync, so you might see some strange movement. I haven’t tested it with that many connections yet so it’ll be interesting to see how well it holds up under fire – please spread the word so I can help to test how it scales up!

There’s been some interest this week with Mozilla’s BrowserQuest (also based on node.js) and that uses a point and click to move mechanism. This is a classic way to reduce the amount of bandwidth and it gets around latency issues, as each move is just a single message to and from the server.

Dead reckoning

It’s much much harder to create a system with free movement and collisions, as all the data the server gets for each player is already out of date. I use a primitive form of ‘dead-reckoning’. As well as the position data, I also send the server the current velocity and a time stamp.

The data for each player is sent to the browser, along with the time-stamp and velocity. It’s then up to each client to smooth out that motion, and predict where each ship should be now, if the player carried on along that trajectory. Of course this is quite an inaccurate system, and I’m still refining the algorithm

Security

Any in-browser game is fundamentally hack-able. That’s why I’ve set up an ‘authoritative server’ system. Although the browser updates all the physics for the player, the server authenticates the ships movement to make sure there’s no funny business! The collision detection is performed locally and then the damage is verified and reported by the server.

Node.js

I’ve been really impressed by the performance and accessibility of node, apparently the V8 JS engine that powers it is can in some cases be 30% of the speed of native compiled C++ code. And there have been huge advantages in using the same JS code on the server and client. I’m looking forward to seeing how well it scales.

Next steps

It’s a really early demo, and I have lots more work to do, but please test out the mechanism, and let me know how the synchronisation and dead reckoning feels. There may still be the odd glitch. I’ll be keeping an eye on it over the next couple of days so I’m sure there’ll be the odd drop-out. Let me know how it works for you!

Play MMOsteroids

[UPDATE] yes, yes check the date. Full confession.

Related posts:

1. Gotcha! Fake MMO Asteroids April fool :)

FITC Amsterdam

27th-28th February 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands

I think this might be my fifth FITC Amsterdam in a row! I’ll be flying through this time (it always happens right around my birthday) and presenting some live JavaScript coding things in a 90 minute session right at the start of day 2.

In another session in the afternoon, I’ll be interviewing Ricardo Cabello (AKA Mr doob) live on stage. I’ll ask him about his recent projects with Google, the three.js 3D library, and how he managed to become such an amazing creative coder. The interview will be recorded for the next Creative Coding Podcast episode.

I’m also looking forward to catching up with old friends Mario Klingemann and Grant Skinner, but sadly, in a truly disastrous planning malfunction, Golan Levin is leaving right before I arrive!

FITC Amsterdam info and booking.

Beyond Tellerrand Play

24th-27th April 2012, Köln, Germany

Having grown from FFK, Play12 promises to be an inspirational event. Last time I was there I got stuck thanks to volcano Eyjafjallajökull, although I was stuck along with Joshua Davies, Jesse Freeman and the Influxis guys so it could have been a lot worse.

Josh will be there again, and so will the godfather of creative coding, Keith Peters. There’s also a presentation from Google doodle developer Marcin Wichary. I’ll be speaking and running 2 workshops there (including one for non-coders).

Beyond Tellerrand Play info and booking.

Related posts:

1. Introducing The Creative Coding Podcast
2. Conferences
3. Come to FITC and win stuff!

It was quite a week – all of my courses sold out in a matter of days (Brighton in only 24 hours!). I’ll be setting up more throughout the year but I’m considering adding another Amsterdam date while I’m there if there’s enough demand.

More information about the courses on my training page. It’d be the full CreativeJS course, not the one for non-coders. If you’re interested please register your interest here.

Related posts:

1. CreativeJS in Brighton, Amsterdam, SxSW Texas and Manchester
2. CreativeJS tour – extra NYC date added!
3. Register interest for CreativeJS Amsterdam

If you’re a designer or artist and have never programmed JavaScript before, I’ve got a new course just for you : CreativeJS for non-coders. It assumes no pre-existing code knowledge (although a little HTML/CSS will be helpful) and we start from the very beginning with variables, functions, and objects.

If you’ve been following the podcast or my recent posts, you’ll know that I’m passionate about encouraging creative people to start programming – often once they get past the hump of incomprehension they can often be the best coders. At the very least you’ll be able to communicate with the programmers you work with better!

Every thing we do has a visual counterpart on an HTML5 canvas element. So you can see straight away the effects of your actions. It’s how I learned to code all those years ago…

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, more information and booking on my training page – sign up for the newsletter to hear about courses near you.

[UPDATE] Here are the files if you want to have a play for yourself!

[UPDATE 2] only 2 tickets left!

[UPDATE 3] Sold out! Sign up to hear about the new courses.

Related posts:

1. Creative JavaScript training courses for 2012
2. CreativeJS comes home to Brighton

It’s become a bit of an annual tradition for me to review my year. And it’s also a bit of a tradition for me to leave it quite late! I guess this process is a little self-indulgent, in truth, I’m so frantic most of the time that’s it’s a great opportunity to take stock and remind myself of all the incredible experiences I had in 2011. So here goes…

The year of JavaScript

3D pixel renderer from CreativeJS.com

2011 was the year of CreativeJS – I put together the first workshops in January, and haven’t looked back. There were around 20 last year all over the world, and I think that most, if not all, sold out.

There’s never been a greater demand to learn creative coding in JavaScript and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to transfer techniques across. And very lucky that people seem to like it!

CreativeJS.com

There was such a growing interest in CreativeJS that I launched a spin off website to showcase the best JS projects and tutorials in July – we’ve had nearly half a million page views since then!

Conferences

As the Flash community has somewhat dispersed, I’ve been branching out into other communities. I’ve spoken at many types of conference, not just JavaScript, but also wider web design, mobile, and digital art.

When you’re trying new things and meeting new people it can be intimidating – I’ve spent a lot of 2011 well outside of my comfort zone. But the initial awkwardness passes, and those strange faces quickly become familiar.

I’ve met all sorts of talented people across a variety of fields and without fail they’ve been incredibly welcoming and friendly.

Creative Coding Podcast

Iain Lobb and I started the Creative Coding Podcast in February. I’m not sure that either of us quite knew what to expect, but I’ve really enjoyed having a new outlet, and we recorded nearly 20 hours of material so far.

I think it often comes across better than the written word – listeners can hear the tone of your voice which really helps when the subject matter is contentious. So far, our podcasts had been downloaded nearly 200,000 times! The most popular episodes are Flashageddon and Robert Hodgin.

Projects

flickr/johansterenberg

By biggest project by far this year was PixelPhones, where I connect all the phones in the audience into a massive pulsing blinking display. I started it in April and I just about got a prototype together in time for September. It was my first really big project in openFrameworks and there was a huge learning curve.

It needs more refinement and optimisation but I have big secret plans for it in 2012 that will be announced in April.

Travelling

Lots of travelling this year with three trips to the US. First stop was SxSW in Austin, which is a very silly conference. Then my wife Jenny and I spent 2 months in New York which was boring. Nah only joking – it was New York! An amazing experience and fantastic chance to hang out with our friends there.

Finally in October I took the CreativeJS workshop on a sold-out tour through NY, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington DC. There were also trips to Sweden, Amsterdam (twice), and Germany.

In October I finally discovered Instagram and I love it. It’s a brilliant way to document my travels although a bit annoying that you can only easily share with other Instagrammers (my username: sebleedelisle). And if you’re not on there, I’ll be posting my photos on Flickr.

Teaching

There’s been lots of teaching, but not all in JavaScript. I ran an Arduino workshop at BuildBrighton, a Processing module at Sussex Downs College, and a session at Update about Corona, the iPhone and Android gaming platform.

It really got me thinking about teaching non-programmers and designers. This will be a theme for 2012.

Blog

You might have noticed that my blog has had a redesign – this is all thanks to the talented designer and friend, Val Head (who designed and writes for CreativeJS.com). It’s still a work in progress so expect to see a few more tweaks in the coming months.

What’s next?

Lots of new stuff, new workshops, and new conferences. I’m already getting booked up for most of the year, so if you think you might want me to come and speak at your event, I wouldn’t hang around!

2011 was a pretty stand-out year for me, let’s hope 2012 will be just as amazing.

Related posts:

1. My review of the year in .net magazine
2. Review of 2008 – in pictures
3. A (belated) review of 2009

Dear EventBrite,

Unless I set up bank accounts in every country I do business in I have no choice but to use PayPal with your service. I don’t want to stop seeing you but then I don’t want PayPal either. It’s me or the dog.

You and I have had a mostly happy relationship over the years. Sure, your content editor looks like it’s from the 90s, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’ve grown to love your cheery orange masthead, and large friendly typeface.

But now, it might finally be over. It’s just not working.

It’s not me, it’s you.

You might have noticed that people are having trouble with PayPal lately, especially event organisers. I’ve had my own fair share of trouble with them – on my recent US tour, they started refusing good credit cards for no reason.

So, understandably, I stopped using PayPal and wanted to use your credit card processing instead. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t get the money til after the event, but you thoughtfully set up advanced payments for me.

But disaster struck!

For my new Creative JavaScript workshop in Amsterdam, you wouldn’t accept my bank details, because it’s a UK bank, and the event isn’t in UK currency.

So I have no choice – either I set up bank accounts in every country I do business in, or I have to use PayPal. And frankly I’d rather stab myself in the face with a fork.

So this really could be it. Farewell my breezy orange friend. It’s been fun.

love

Seb

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